


Truth or eel

by wawalux



Series: More words than work [5]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Awesome Foggy Nelson, Awkward Romance, Bisexual Foggy Nelson, Bisexual Matt Murdock, Boys In Love, Declarations Of Love, Dorks in Love, Drinking, Drinking Games, Drunken Confessions, Drunken Flirting, Drunken Shenanigans, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Romance, Forbidden Love, Funny, Hurt Foggy Nelson, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Matt Murdock & Foggy Nelson Friendship, Medical Examination, Minor Foggy Nelson/Marci Stahl, One Shot, POV Matt Murdock, Scents & Smells, Stolen Moments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:00:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26509387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wawalux/pseuds/wawalux
Summary: “Mmmm. I love that smell…” Foggy’s mumble is so near that Matt can feel the words travel up his chest and neck on their way to his ears.“W-what?” Matt tries to squirm away and fails, tethered as he is with both hands on Foggy’s ankle.“Your suit. It has that new car smell. Mmmmm,” Foggy breathes in deep, his nose hovering around Matt’s collar, “It’s orgasmic.”Matt splutters through an unidentifiable sound that he doesn’t quite manage to mask as a cough. It doesn’t deter Foggy in the slightest, who happily tries to blend into the fabric of his suit.[OR Foggy gets drunk. Very drunk. He may say a little more than he intended to.]
Relationships: Matt Murdock & Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson
Series: More words than work [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1888111
Comments: 11
Kudos: 98





	Truth or eel

**Author's Note:**

> Here, take it so I can stop agonizing over it.

“Mmmmmmmmmhh,” Foggy leans in, a little too close for comfort and Matt freezes, mostly because it’s not a little too close at all.

“Uh…Foggy?”

Foggy only moves closer, sniffs him like a dog searching for a treat, hums a deep contented sigh as he exhales.

“Mmmm. I _love_ that smell…” Foggy’s mumble is so near that Matt can feel the words travel up his chest and neck on their way to his ears.

“W-what?” Matt tries to squirm away and fails, tethered as he is with both hands on Foggy’s ankle.

“Your suit. It has that new car smell. Mmmmm,” Foggy breathes in deep, his nose hovering around Matt’s collar, “It’s orgasmic.”

Matt splutters through an unidentifiable sound that he doesn’t quite manage to mask as a cough. It doesn’t deter Foggy in the slightest, who happily tries to blend into the fabric of his suit.

“Hey, think we can get a few for the office? Make them our official uniform?”

“Foggy, can you…I’m trying to concentrate here.”

“Right. Sorry,” Foggy lapses into silence and his breathing grinds to a halt. Matt sighs.

“I didn’t say to stop breathing,” he admonishes, letting his fingers spider their way around Foggy’s warm skin. Foggy obediently takes a deep breath and leans back into the couch, letting Matt pull his senses into the ankle between his hands, and not on the air that smells only and completely like Foggy and that is, well… rather distracting. He wishes he had an excuse to sniff Foggy like an overeager bloodhound.

Inflammation is pooling under the soft skin at the back of Foggy’s foot, lapping around the injury like a tide to a shore. Matt can feel the subtle swelling increase under the pads of his fingers, feels it pulse with its very own heartbeat, its own heat, like Foggy has grown a new smaller replica of his heart in his ankle and Matt kind of wishes he could take it home.

He moves it as gently as he can to assess the harm. Left to right, up and down. Foggy whimpers and yelps and his pain reverberates all the way down to the tips of his toes. Matt hears it there like an echo, but it’s never accompanied by any grinding and the tendons bow and sing taut as strings when he plucks them with his movements. Matt breathes a sigh of relief.

“Nothing’s broken Fogs, just a sprain.”

“ _Just_ a sprain, you make it sound like it’s nothing,” Foggy’s voice has that petulant edge of a needy child and feels out of place coming from a grown-ass lawyer. But Foggy’s drunk and Matt won’t complain, not when he is already so much in Foggy’s debt and he knows that he puts Foggy through much worse when it’s his turn to be injured.

“You’ll be fine Foggy,” he tells him with a smile, giving the ankle a small pat that makes Foggy jump up indignantly.

“Right. Sure. _Daredevil_ ” he mutters crossly, “how did you find me anyways?!”

“Foggy, you texted me that you were _dying_!”

“I did?”

Matt pulls out his phone, presses a couple of buttons and points it at Foggy. A mechanical voice reads: _“Matt, m’dying. Two late four vengers, even daredevil. Bean nice. Ow. Shit. Damiit. Bye.”_

Matt doesn’t think he can fly but, on this night, he swears he did. He ran so fast that his leaps and bounds stopped landing on the rooftops, pushed himself until it felt like he had left his lungs and his heart behind. He doesn’t need them anyways. Organs? He can do without. Instead he became one with the thought that drove him forward, that still chills the blood in his veins and hovers uncomfortably like dust in his brain.

_Not Foggy, not Foggy, not Foggy._

He traces his hands on Foggy’s leg once again, disguised as a move to further his diagnosis, when Matt really just needs to feel Foggy there, next to him, in one piece. The rest are bruises and scrapes that even Foggy is failing to remember in his stupor. Matt can count them on Foggy’s skin, warmer puddles that thrum with Foggy’s pulse.

“I thought I was dying” Foggy says when his mind can’t think of an argument that will get him plausible deniability for the text message.

“You fell down the stairs,” Matt reminds him gently, searching for the gauze on the table.

“It _really_ hurt.”

“That would be because you sprained your ankle,” Matt unravels the sandpaper tissue and shudders at the feel of it against his skin, before he begins to expertly loop it around Foggy’s ankle.

“But I _could’ve_ died,” Foggy fires back smugly.

“And whose fault is that?”

It’s like arguing with a very smart but very stubborn toddler and Matt can’t bring himself to stop. He loves how the words flow so freely from Foggy’s mouth, like Matt can pull thoughts straight out of his head.

“So I had a few drinks, big deal _mom_ ,” Matt is pretty sure that Foggy is pouting and he wants to extend his hand to feel how it twists Foggy’s lips. God, he wishes he could see Foggy’s pout. He wishes he could see Foggy at all.

“A few?”

That he smells like a distillery is an understatement. Matt is pretty sure that Foggy would catch fire if he stood close enough to a spark. The fumes radiating from Foggy’s pores are enough to make Matt feel dizzy, make his world on fire that little bit more colourful and slightly more uncertain, like the furniture scattered around the room has developed its own nervous system and likes to use it to shift slightly when he is not paying attention.

“Hey, blame it on the Karen, I _had to_ drink, we were playing ‘truth or eel’.”

“You mean ‘truth or dare’.”

“No, I mean ‘truth or _eel_ ’. Used to be ‘truth or dare’, but we just dared each other to drink the eel every time, so now it’s ‘truth or eel’.

“I’m guessing you didn’t pick ‘truth’.”

“Couldn’t tell you. Attorney-client privilege,”

“What? Foggy, you are not Karen’s attorney, and neither is she yours.”

“Am so. She paid me and we have a contract and everything,” Foggy slurs smugly and damn it if Matt wouldn’t pick Foggy to defend him any day, even when he is so drunk that he forgets how to walk up a simple flight of stairs.

“Do you now?”

“Sure do,” and Foggy produces a crumpled-up half-drenched napkin from his pocket and hands it proudly to Matt. It smells like it has soaked up half of Josie’s grime and it sends a pang of longing down Matt’s spine. Matt flattens it against his leg as best as he can without tearing it and runs his fingers over the scribbles on its surface. He makes out the word ‘contract’ written in capitals across the top and what he can only assume are Karen’s and Foggy’s signatures at the bottom. The rest of it is a blank mesh of creases from Foggy’s pocket. Matt’s lips quirk into a smile and he places the napkin carefully back on the coffee table next to him.

“You still didn’t have to say that you were dying” he admonishes quietly, tying the gauze so it won’t unravel.

Foggy has gone quiet, sniffly breaths staining his chin which is pointing decidedly elsewhere, away from Matt and the gauze and the half-used packet of frozen peas that is perched precariously on his leg.

“I didn’t know if you would come otherwise,” admits Foggy in a small voice that is wet with hurt and tears.

Matt stills at the sound of Foggy’s pain, guilty like he made the sun rain. He’s not good at this, at feelings, at affection. That’s Foggy’s turf. Matt punches them into broken bones, let’s them drip out in blood from his knuckles. If asked, he’d probably claim he didn’t have any at all.

“Of course I’d come, Foggy,” he tells him earnestly, searching for his hand like he would for his gaze, “Foggy? Fogs?”

Matt explores the crater he didn’t realise was there, like the pit in Midland Circle, hidden in something so familiar and whole and just waiting for him to look closer. It’s there in Foggy’s hurt, in his belief that Matt would put him _second_ , when Matt doesn’t even have a podium, it’s Foggy at the top, at the bottom, left and right.

“Fogs? Of course I would, why would you say that?”

Foggy doesn’t speak for a while, doesn’t want to, his breathing tells Matt so. His answer comes out as more of a grumbled smear, words fugitive from the cage of his will, like they often are, with Foggy. Foggy is words more than he is anything else, his voice louder than his presence. It makes Foggy glow in every room, like the sun in the sky, it lets Matt _see_ him like he can look.

Matt catches something that sounds like ‘busy being Daredevil’ and he places five senses on Foggy and more; he wants to put a hand on his chest to not miss a single comma.

‘I’m Matt, Foggy, even when I’m Daredevil. I’m always Matt,” he feels a pang of guilt, it’s a stone that’s lodged and it grinds when he breathes, he tries to swallow it down.

Foggy’s chin has found gravity, it’s low now, single tears tinkling like a pinball machine as they hit Foggy’s stubble on their way down his jaw. Matt catches one as it falls, its heat sizzling after the numbness of the frozen peas. He places Foggy’s injured ankle gently on the coffee table and moves to sit next to Foggy on the couch. The old cushions huff in protest and tilt Foggy against his arm. Matt doesn’t try to move him away and holds his breath until Foggy settles his temple into his shoulder.

“You are my best friend, Foggy,” he needs to punch the words out of his chest, kick them out with the force that would normally break femurs, twist shoulders and draw the cries of agony that are now splashing around near his lungs, “for you, I’ll always come.”

Foggy snorts into his shoulder, “Yeah baby, talk dirty to me Murdock.”

Laughter explodes out of their lungs like fireworks, it’s drunk and light and it fills the room with shapes and colour. It’s Foggy and Matt, avocados at law. They don’t stop for a long time, and even after, Foggy rests his head on Matt’s lap and makes contented sleepy sighs that taste like whisky.

Matt keeps his hands steady by his sides, lets Foggy’s warmth inch around him as it spreads, lets it be enough. He tries not to think of the depth of the holes he’s carved in his friend, tries to ignore the _I told you so’s_ that Stick wants to spit in his stupid face.

“Alright, time for bed,” Matt announces when Foggy goes back to sniffing him like a line of cocaine.

“Mmmm you just smell like a new Bentley! And to think that we could’ve driven Bentley’s, buddy,” Foggy moans when Matt stands, effectively losing his pillow.

“Yeah, pretty sure no amount of money would’ve allowed _me_ to drive” Matt’s laughing when he pulls Foggy up by his arms.

“I would’ve driven you in our Bentley, Matty, you would’ve loved it! I’d pick you up after you finish beating the shit out of people, put music on and everything.”

Foggy continues to paint the picture of their lives with Bentleys all the way to his room, and it’s a _long_ way. They reach the bedroom so slowly that Matt wonders if it’s moving away, hobbling like they are the participants of a three-legged race. Foggy’s drunkenness almost neutralises Matt’s super-senses, deciding in a change of course mid-way and dragging Matt with him when he places the wrong foot on the ground. Matt feels like he is the one who fell down the stairs when he eventually deposits a half-passed out Foggy on his bed and is extremely grateful that he is still wearing his Daredevil armour.

“So, tell me one truth,” he prods as he feels his way through Foggy’s triple-knotted shoelaces. They are a jumbled mess that pull harder than Matt and burn the skin near his fingernails. Untidy, just like Foggy is. They make Matt feel irrationally whole as they scrape against his skin.

“Can’t,” Matt thinks Foggy mumbles something about ‘attorney-client privilege’ but all he gets is a indistinct ‘dge’.

“Just one,” he tries to use his most seductive tone, the one that he knows Foggy usually caves to. He’d flash him that special smile too but he is pretty sure that Foggy’s eyes are sewn shut.

“Fine,” Foggy’s voice is lower than a whisper, more of a convoluted sigh, “Karen thinks the black suit is sexier than the horny one.”

Matt chokes and tries to rein in a laugh that would definitely hamper Foggy’s very serious tone.

“And you?” He teases, feeling his insides squirm while he waits for an answer.

"I don't care, Daredevil has a good ass either way."

"I...what?" 

“I don’t know. I still think I should’ve seen it,” Foggy sounds sad.

“Seen what?”

“Recognised it.”

“Recognised Daredevil’s ass?!”

Foggy hums his assent.

Oh. Matt tries to push it into a joke but his laughter scratches his throat sore.

“Do you make a point of staring at Daredevil’s ass?”

“Not just the ass. The lips too.”

Matt doesn’t know what to make of that, tells his heart to cut it out when it tries to back-flip in his chest. It doesn’t mean anything, Foggy’s just drunk, they’re just _friends_ , friends have opinions, that’s all.

“Tell me another truth,” he asks conversationally, gathering Foggy’s shoes and placing them in a corner of the room where they won’t trip Foggy up in a nightly half-drunk hobble to the bathroom. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to handle it if Foggy sprains his other ankle.

Foggy huffs out a weak ‘nuh’ and starts waving him off like an annoying fly.

“One more for the road,” Matt tells him, as he tries to manoeuvre Foggy out of his suit jacket.

“C’ntract,” Foggy mutters, one sleeve off.

“Contract says you’re allowed to tell the other lawyer in your practice.”

It doesn’t, but the contract is also a blank napkin, so technically…

“Karen,” Foggy starts, helpfully wriggling a second arm out of the jacket.

“No, one about Foggy this time,” Matt busies himself with Foggy’s tie.

“Marcy was right,” Foggy slurs, his breaths looser without the tie jammed in his throat, but his heart picks up a double beat, like Foggy doesn’t quite believe he’s said it out loud.

“About what?” Matt asks as he delicately undoes Foggy’s belt with one knee on the bed, trying, for the sake of their friendship, not to feel the heat from what lies beneath.

“Karen said she understands soo much now,” Foggy mutters through a yawn so big Matt can _see_ it, a golden circle that shimmers with Foggy’s breath, “smart cookie.”

“Foggy?”

Nothing.

“Fogs,” Matt shakes his good foot gently, “what does Karen understand now?”

“She thinks he doesn’t know because he likes to stick his head up his ass.”

"Who does? Know what?"

"It's Friday. I'm in love," Foggy replies simply.

What?

Foggy sounds like he wants to laugh or break into song but his lungs are too tired. His heart is doing a curious dance, taps between sleep and excitement and guilt. Matt doesn’t understand what it’s trying to say, either one of them. He can’t decide which one to prod first.

Foggy said _he_. Matt doesn’t know why that feels so crucial, why jealousy is licking at his insides and there’s a rage, one that makes the devil ask to spill out of him, that is filling him up to the brim, that is making his knuckles scream from how tightly his fists are clenched.

“Foggy, Foggy who doesn’t know you are in love? Foggy? Who are you in love with?”

Foggy’s more asleep than awake now, Matt can hear it in the way his heart is singing itself into a slumber. Foggy’s in that small window where truths are handed out like candies because reality has stopped being. Matt moves close to his face, places trembling fingers against the line of his jaw and steadies his tone, makes it gentler, compels it not to shake.

“Foggy, who are you in love with?” He whispers, nerves zinging like electricity between each of his muscles.

Whoever they are won’t be good enough and Matt might just pay them a visit to let them know just how much. Matty finds himself cataloguing Foggy’s bodily reaction to every male voice they’ve encountered in the office in the past few months while he waits with bated breath. Then he panics for all the moments he hasn’t been around Foggy, all the moments that gave ‘he’ their chance to steal Foggy away.

“Foggy?”

Would Karen tell him? Could he ask her? He could go now, after, wake her up. Matt makes half-plans while he refuses to acknowledge the insanity of his desperation, of what it might mean.

“Foggy, truth or eel, it’s your turn.” Matt lies and he can’t stop. Foggy _mmmms_ in annoyance and says something that ends with ‘Karen’.

“No, buddy, it’s your turn, are you ready?” He listens to Foggy’s lips smack in preparation before he tries again, one last time, loud in Foggy’s ear.

“Tell me who you are in love with.”

Please. Please.

Foggy turns, scrunches his face into creases of heat that are almost visible to Matt and Matt waits, like that bright light that calls you back when you are mostly just asleep.

“Matty,” his name falls out of Foggy’s lips as his jaw goes slack, beats as steady as the truth.

Icy shock and boiling joy fight to fill Matt, refuse to mix like oil in water and Matt struggles to still either one long enough to absorb Foggy’s pilfered confession. His heart splutters, stutters, doesn’t know where to go. He fights the urge to wake Foggy up, shake him until he says it again against his lips, against his skin, his new favourite sound.

“Don’t tell him, don’t tell Matt,” Foggy mumbles through lips that are already out, his tongue struggling to form the words in between soft snores.

Matt doesn’t know how long he stands there, watching a new universe unfold.

Eventually he places a glass of water and an aspirin on Foggy’s bedside table and a hand, lightly treading through Foggy’s tousled hair. The sleep-drunk warmth leaves shadows soft as feathers in the skin between Matt’s fingers and a smile that starts in his chest etched on his mouth.

“I won’t Fogs, I won’t,” he lies as he whispers out of the window and back into the night.

**Author's Note:**

> Starting to think that ‘truth or eel’ should be the next drinking game. Just saying.


End file.
